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NAME

SYNOPSIS

xpdf
[options]
[PDF-file
[page | +dest]]

DESCRIPTION

Xpdf
is a viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files. (These are also
sometimes also called 'Acrobat' files, from the name of Adobe's PDF
software.) Xpdf runs under the X Window System on UNIX, VMS, and
OS/2.

To run xpdf, simply type:

xpdf file.pdf

where
file.pdf
is your PDF file. The file name can be followed by a number
specifying the page which should be displayed first, e.g.:

xpdf file.pdf 18

You can also give a named destination, prefixed with '+' in place of
the page number.

You can also start xpdf without opening any files:

xpdf

CONFIGURATION FILE

Xpdf reads a configuration file at startup. It first tries to find
the user's private config file, ~/.xpdfrc. If that doesn't exist, it
looks for a system-wide config file, typically /etc/xpdfrc
(but this location can be changed when xpdf is built). See the
xpdfrc(5)
man page for details.

OPTIONS

Many of the following options can be set with configuration file
commands or X resources. These are listed in square brackets with the
description of the corresponding command line option.

Set the window title. By default, the title will be "xpdf: foo.pdf".
[X resource: xpdf.title]

-cmap

Install a private colormap. This is ignored on TrueColor visuals.
[X resource: xpdf.installCmap]

-rgb number

Set the size of largest RGB cube xpdf will try to allocate. The
default is 5 (for a 5x5x5 cube); set to a smaller number to conserve
color table entries. This is ignored with private colormaps and on
TrueColor visuals.
[X resource: xpdf.rgbCubeSize]

-rv

Set reverse video mode. This reverses the colors of everything except
images. It may not always produce great results for PDF files which
do weird things with color. This also causes the paper color to
default to black.
[X resource: xpdf.reverseVideo]

-papercolor color

Set the "paper color", i.e., the background of the page display. This
will not work too well with PDF files that do things like filling in
white behind the text.
[X resource: xpdf.paperColor]

-z zoom

Set the initial zoom factor. A number (-5 .. 5) specifies a zoom
factor, where 0 means 72 dpi. You may also specify 'page', to fit
the page to the window size, or 'width', to fit the page width to the
window width.
[config file: initialZoom; or X resource: xpdf.initialZoom]

Set the type of font rendering for FreeType (the TrueType rasterizer)
to use. Options are 'none' (don't use FreeType at all), 'plain'
(use non-anti-aliased fonts), 'low' or 'high' (use anti-aliased
fonts; these two are identical).
[config file: freetypeControl]

-ps PS-file

Set the default file name for PostScript output. This can also be of
the form '|command' to pipe the PostScript through a command.
[config file: psFile]

-paper size

Set the paper size to one of "letter", "legal", "A4", or "A3".
[config file: psPaperSize]

-paperw size

Set the paper width, in points.
[config file: psPaperSize]

-paperh size

Set the paper height, in points.
[config file: psPaperSize]

-level1

Generate Level 1 PostScript. The resulting PostScript files will be
significantly larger (if they contain images), but will print on Level
1 printers. This also converts all images to black and white.
[config file: psLevel]

-enc encoding-name

Sets the encoding to use for text output. The
encoding-name
must be defined with the unicodeMap command (see
xpdfrc(5)).
This defaults to "Latin1" (which is a built-in encoding).
[config file: textEncoding]

-eol unix | dos | mac

Sets the end-of-line convention to use for text output.
[config file: textEOL]

-opw password

Specify the owner password for the PDF file. Providing this will
bypass all security restrictions.

-upw password

Specify the user password for the PDF file.

-fullscreen

Open xpdf in a full-screen mode, useful for presentations. You may
also want to specify '-bg black' (or similar) with this. (There is
currently no way to switch between window and full-screen modes on the
fly.)

Read
config-file
in place of ~/.xpdfrc or the system-wide config file.

-v

Print copyright and version information.

-h

Print usage information.
(-help
and
--help
are equivalent.)

Several other standard X options and resources will work as expected:

-display display

[X resource: xpdf.display]

-fg color

(-foreground
is equivalent.)
[X resource: xpdf*Foreground]

-bg color

(-background
is equivalent.)
[X resource: xpdf*Background]

-font font

(-fn
is equivalent.)
[X resource: xpdf*fontList]

The color and font options only affect the user interface elements,
not the PDF display (the 'paper').

The following X resources do not have command line option equivalents:

xpdf.viKeys

Enables the 'h', 'l', 'k' and 'j' keys for left, right, up, and
down scrolling.

CONTROLS

On-screen controls, at the bottom of the xpdf window

left/right arrow buttons

Move to the previous/next page.

double left/right arrow buttons

Move backward or forward by ten pages.

dashed left/right arrow buttons

Move backward or forward along the history path.

'Page' entry box

Move to a specific page number. Click in the box to activate it, type
the page number, then hit return.

zoom popup menu

Change the zoom factor (see the description of the -z option above).

binoculars button

Find a text string.

print button

Bring up a dialog for generating a PostScript file. The dialog has
options to set the pages to be printed and the PostScript file name.
The file name can be '-' for stdout or '|command' to pipe the
PostScript through a command, e.g., '|lpr'.

'?' button

Bring up the 'about xpdf' window.

link info

The space between the '?' and 'Quit' buttons is used to show the URL
or external file name when the mouse is over a link.

'Quit' button

Quit xpdf.

Menu

Pressing the right mouse button will post a popup menu with the
following commands:

Open...

Open a new PDF file via a file requester.

Open in new window...

Create a new window and open a new PDF file via a file requester.

Reload

Reload the current PDF file. Note that Xpdf will reload the file
automatically (on a page change or redraw) if it has changed since it
was last loaded.

Save as...

Save the current file via a file requester.

Rotate counterclockwise

Rotate the page 90 degrees counterclockwise.

Rotate clockwise

Rotate the page 90 degrees clockwise. The two rotate commands are
intended primarily for PDF files where the rotation isn't correctly
specified in the file, but they're also useful if your X server
doesn't support font rotation.

Close

Close the current window. If this is the only open window, the
document is closed, but the window is left open (i.e., this menu
command won't quit xpdf).

Quit

Quit xpdf.

Text selection

Dragging the mouse with the left button held down will highlight an
arbitrary rectangle. Any text inside this rectangle will be copied to
the X selection buffer.

Links

Clicking on a hyperlink will jump to the link's destination. A link
to another PDF document will make xpdf load that document. A
'launch' link to an executable program will display a dialog, and if
you click 'ok', execute the program. URL links call an external
command (see the
WEB BROWSERS
section below).

Panning

Dragging the mouse with the middle button held down pans the window.

Key bindings

o

Open a new PDF file via a file requester.

r

Reload the current PDF file. Note that Xpdf will reload the file
automatically (on a page change or redraw) if it has changed since it
was last loaded.

control-L

Redraw the current page.

control-W

Close the current window.

f or control-F

Find a text string.

control-G

Find next occurrence.

control-P

Print.

n

Move to the next page. Scrolls to the top of the page, unless scroll
lock is turned on.

p

Move to the previous page. Scrolls to the top of the page, unless
scroll lock is turned on.

<Space> or <PageDown> or <Next>

Scroll down on the current page; if already at bottom, move to next
page.

<Backspace> or <Delete> or <PageUp> or <Previous>

Scroll up on the current page; if already at top, move to previous
page.

v

Move forward along the history path.

b

Move backward along the history path.

<Home>

Scroll to top of current page.

<End>

Scroll to bottom of current page.

control-<Home>

Scroll to first page of document.

control-<End>

Scroll to last page of document.

arrows

Scroll the current page.

g

Activate the page number text field ("goto page").

0

Set the zoom factor to zero (72 dpi).

+

Zoom in (increment the zoom factor by 1).

-

Zoom out (decrement the zoom factor by 1).

z

Set the zoom factor to 'page' (fit page to window).

w

Set the zoom factor to 'width' (fit page width to window).

q

Quit xpdf.

WEB BROWSERS

If you want to run xpdf automatically from netscape or mosaic (and
probably other browsers) when you click on a link to a PDF file, you
need to edit (or create) the files
.mime.types
and
.mailcap
in your home directory. In
.mime.types
add the line:

application/pdf pdf

In
.mailcap
add the lines:

# Use xpdf to view PDF files.

application/pdf; xpdf -q %s

Make sure that xpdf is on your executable search path.

When you click on a URL link in a PDF file, xpdf will execute the
command specified by the urlCommand config file option, replacing an
occurrence of '%s' with the URL. For example, to call netscape with
the URL, add this line to your config file:

urlCommand "netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'"

REMOTE SERVER MODE

Xpdf can be started in remote server mode by specifying a server name
(in addition to the file name and page number). For example:

xpdf -remote myServer file.pdf

If there is currently no xpdf running in server mode with the name
'myServer', a new xpdf window will be opened. If another command:

xpdf -remote myServer another.pdf 9

is issued, a new copy of xpdf will not be started. Instead, the first
xpdf (the server) will load
another.pdf
and display page nine. If the file name is the same:

xpdf -remote myServer another.pdf 4

the xpdf server will simply display the specified page.

The -raise option tells the server to raise its window; it can be
specified with or without a file name and page number.